Lake Forest students admitted to the accelerated program will spend three years at Lake Forest followed by three years at Chicago-Kent.

The fourth-year curriculum for the bachelor’s degree will overlap with the first year of law school studies. Students in the program who meet all requirements for their first three years — including satisfactory completion of all course work for their academic major and achievement of the required minimum undergraduate GPA and law school admission test score — will be assured of a place in Chicago-Kent’s first-year class.

The first group of Lake Forest students will be eligible to begin legal studies in the fall of 2012.

Students will pay Lake Forest tuition for the first three years and Chicago-Kent tuition for the remaining three years. Officials at both schools are optimistic about the new program and expect it will lead to additional cross-institutional collaboration.

The collaboration is not entirely new: Chicago College of Law was affiliated with Lake Forest College between 1889 and 1900. When that association ended, Chicago College of Law merged with the Kent College of Law to become Chicago-Kent College of Law.

“We’re excited about re-establishing our historical relationship with Lake Forest College,” said Chicago-Kent Dean Harold J. Krent. “Through the establishment of this dual-degree program, our faculty and students will benefit from greater interaction between the two schools. Moreover, this closer collaboration with Lake Forest will result in attracting additional excellent students to Chicago-Kent.”

“Lake Forest College is pleased to partner with Chicago-Kent to offer our ambitious and talented students the chance to get a law degree from a quality institution in less time,” said Lake Forest Dean of Faculty Janet McCracken.

Lake Forest College is a national liberal arts institution located 30 miles north of downtown Chicago. The college has 1,400 students representing 45 states and 69 countries.

About the Chicago-Kent College of Law

Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, a private, Ph.D.-granting institution with programs in engineering, psychology, architecture, business, design and law.

With more than 1,100 students, Chicago-Kent offers full-time and part-time J.D. and LL.M. degree programs as well as joint-degree programs with other IIT units.

Chicago-Kent Law School and Lake Forest College to Offer Accelerated Dual-Degree Program | Chicago Press Release Services - Chicago's leading press release newswire service; professional press release services, press release distribution and newswire services.

Announcing the FSIP appointments, President Obama said, “This group brings a dedication and expertise in their fields that will serve this administration and the American people well. As we work to advance equal rights, keep our nation safe and put our country back on a path to prosperity, I look forward to working with these fine individuals in the months and years ahead.”

The Federal Service Impasses Panel is the agency that intervenes when an agency of the federal government and a union representing that agency’s employees are unable to reach agreement on the terms of their new collective bargaining agreement under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute and the Federal Employees Flexible and Compressed Work Schedules Act.

If bargaining between the parties, followed by mediation assistance, is unsuccessful, the FSIP has the authority to recommend procedures and to take whatever action it deems necessary to resolve the impasse. The seven FSIP members are presidential appointees who serve on a part-time basis.

“All of the members of the panel are highly regarded labor relations professionals and neutrals. I am excited and humbled by the opportunity to serve and am looking forward to the challenges ahead,” said Professor Malin.

A member of the Chicago-Kent faculty since 1980, Professor Malin teaches courses in labor law, collective bargaining, arbitration, public sector labor law, employment law, contracts and jurisprudence. He has published five books, including Public Sector Employment: Cases and Materials (West 2004), the leading law school casebook on public sector labor law. Professor Malin has also written more than 60 articles on labor law and dispute resolution.

In 1996, Professor Malin established the Institute for Law and the Workplace, a national center for research, training, dialogue, and reflection on the law that governs the workplace. The institute serves as an intellectual home for the labor and employment law community, both in the Chicago area and nationwide.

An active arbitrator and mediator since 1984, Professor Malin recently completed a three-year term on the National Academy of Arbitrators’ board of governors and is a fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. He also serves on the Executive Committee of The Labor Law Group and is a past chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Labor Relations and Employment Law.

During the mid 1980s, Professor Malin served as a consultant to Illinois’ public employment labor boards and drafted the regulations implementing Illinois’ newly-enacted public sector labor relations acts. From 2004 to 2008, he served as reporter for the Association of Labor Relations Agencies’ Neutrality Project. Professor Malin was the principal drafter of the association’s Neutrality Report, a mini-treatise on labor board and mediation agency impartiality.

Professor Malin joined the Chicago-Kent faculty in 1980 after teaching at Ohio State University and serving as a law clerk to the Honorable Robert E. DeMascio, United States District Judge, Eastern District of Michigan. He received his B.A. from Michigan State University’s James Madison College and his J.D. from George Washington University, where he was an editor of the law review and a member of Order of the Coif.

About the Chicago-Kent College of Law

Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), a private, Ph.D.-granting institution. The Chicago-Kent Law Offices, the nation’s first fee-generating law school clinic, has practice areas in employment discrimination and civil rights litigation, family law, health and disability law, immigration law, and criminal defense.

The Law Offices also provides low-income taxpayer representation and mediation and alternative dispute resolution for which no fees are charged.

President Obama Appoints IIT Chicago-Kent Professor Martin H. Malin to the Federal Services Impasses Panel | Chicago Press Release Services - Chicago's leading press release newswire service; professional press release services, press release distribution and newswire services.

The Center will focus in particular on cases challenging closed government processes under the Illinois Open Meetings Act, the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, and similar statutes. The Illinois Open Meetings Act grants citizen access to the meetings of many state and local governmental entities, while the Illinois Freedom of Information Act grants citizen access to a wide range of public documents and records.

The Center staff looks forward to working closely with the Better Government Association (BGA), the Citizen Advocacy Center, and other open-government advocates to support the litigation demands of various transparency initiatives.

The Center for Open Government will be housed in the Chicago-Kent Law Offices as part of the school’s clinical education program. Under the supervision of faculty, students will interview and counsel clients, conduct factual investigation and legal research, develop case strategies, collect and analyze documents, and help in the litigation. No fees will be charged.

The Center has received significant seed funding from Clinton A. Krislov, a noted plaintiff’s class-action attorney and a member of Chicago-Kent’s adjunct faculty. Krislov is the founder and name/senior partner attorney of the Chicago firm Krislov & Associates, Ltd., and will serve as chairman of COG’s advisory committee.

“I am grateful for the generosity of Clint Krislov, who has helped found this Center and who, through his commitment to open government, will inform and inspire our work,” said Chicago-Kent Dean Harold J. Krent. “The formation of this Center responds to a wave of recognition by Attorney General Lisa Madigan and many others that the time is propitious for a sea change in how Illinois’ governmental entities do business.”

The Center will be directed by Terrance A. Norton, who served as a member of Chicago-Kent’s clinical faculty for ten years and who has extensive experience in open government work, civil litigation and pro bono legal services.

“It is important for citizens to have both input and timely access to information on how government bodies conduct their business,” said Norton. “The Center for Open Government will serve as an advocacy center by helping to make government more accessible to its citizens. Our work will help restore transparency and renew trust in government.”

Norton worked for the BGA for more than a dozen years, serving for ten years as associate director and general counsel, and for two years as executive director. He also worked for the U.S. Justice Department as a special attorney in the criminal division’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section.

In addition, he spent five years as a partner with Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP., where he oversaw the firm’s national pro bono program.

About the Chicago-Kent College of Law

Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), a private, Ph.D.-granting institution. The Chicago-Kent Law Offices, the nation’s first fee-generating law school clinic, has practice areas in employment discrimination and civil rights litigation, family law, health and disability law, immigration law, and criminal defense.

The Law Offices also provides low-income taxpayer representation and mediation and alternative dispute resolution for which no fees are charged.

Chicago-Kent College of Law Establishes the “Center for Open Government” to Help Ensure Transparency and Accountability in Local Government | Chicago Press Release Services - Chicago's leading press release newswire service; professional press release services, press release distribution and newswire services.

As Assistant Administrator for OSWER, Mr. Stanislaus is responsible for EPA programs on hazardous and solid waste management and hazardous waste cleanup, including corrective action under the Reconservation and Recovery Act. He will also oversee Superfund and federal facilities cleanup and redevelopment, brownfields, oil spill prevention and response, chemical accident prevention and preparedness, underground storage tanks, and emergency response.

Mr. Stanislaus brings to his new position academic training in chemical engineering and law combined with more than two decades of experience with environmental issues.

Prior to being named to the EPA earlier this year, he served as co-founder and co-director of New Partners for Community Revitalization, a New York-based not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing the renewal of the city’s low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and communities of color through the redevelopment of brownfields sites.

In collaboration with community, commercial, government and nonprofit partners, Mr. Stanislaus led the development of policies, programs and projects aimed at achieving the remediation and sustainable reuse of Brownfields sites in New York.

Mr. Stanislaus is a former counsel for EPA’s Region 2. He has also served as senior environmental associate in the environmental department of the law firm Huber Lawrence & Abell, and as director of environmental compliance for an environmental consulting firm. He has served on the board of the Environmental Justice Alliance in New York.

Mr. Stanislaus has also been an adviser to other federal government agencies, Congress and the United Nations on a variety of environmental issues. In 1997, he chaired a workgroup of the United States Environmental Protection Agency that investigated the clustering of waste transfer stations in low-income and communities of color throughout the United States.

In June 1994, as a member of the United Nations Environment Programme – Environmental Advisory Council, Mr. Stanislaus served as counsel to the United Nations summit that examined environmental issues affecting New York’s indigenous communities of the Haudaunosaunee Confederacy.

Chicago-Kent Law School Alumnus Mathy V. Stanislaus Appointed by President Obama to Key Environmental Post | Chicago Press Release Services - Chicago's leading press release newswire service; professional press release services, press release distribution and newswire services.

Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Chicago-Kent and Technológico de Monterrey (Tec), one of Mexico’s leading private universities, have established a special program to provide training in criminal procedure, curriculum development, criminal law and trial advocacy to Mexican judges, practicing attorneys, law professors and students. The program is designed to help Mexico’s legal community practice more effectively amid dramatic changes to the country’s criminal justice system.

Chicago-Kent and Tec de Monterrey’s law school, which is located in Mexico City, will jointly produce a comprehensive program to prepare law students, defense counsel, prosecutors and judges for practice in this new legal environment. Funding for the three-year program is provided by a grant from the United States Agency for International Development and the Higher Education for Development Office.

In an effort to fight corruption and instill public confidence in Mexico’s legal system, sweeping changes have been implemented to make criminal proceedings more transparent. An adversarial oral system will replace the closed, rigid Mexican legal bureaucracy which relied heavily on an inquisitorial written structure.

Under the new system, protections for rights of the accused in criminal cases have been adapted from the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. A national public defender system has been mandated by law. Suspects will be able to face their accusers and are presumed innocent until proven guilty at trial. Law enforcement officials must now devote more time to creating a credible chain of evidence in cases. Attorneys who defend and prosecute criminal cases will require extensive knowledge of mediation, plea agreements, forensic evidence and oral presentation. Judges will be trained in judicial decision making. Mexican authorities hope to have the new system in place within the next eight years.

The program conducted by Chicago-Kent and Tec de Monterrey will offer lawyers in Baja California, Morelos, and Nuevo León a series of courses spanning six months that feature training in oral advocacy skills and reformed criminal procedure, with lawyers who complete the series receiving a legal education certificate. A “train-the-trainers” program in substantive and procedural law and in pedagogical techniques will enable Mexican law professors to teach the advocacy curriculum and legal education certificate program. Approximately 50 people have attended the first sessions.

In the final stage of the program, a criminal law clinic will be established at Tec de Monterrey to give law students a comprehensive and balanced professional education that will prepare them adequately for criminal law practice. Students will receive hands-on training as they work with experienced criminal attorneys on actual cases and learn advocacy techniques and principles of court administration.

A scholarship program will be established to provide 15 Mexican attorneys with funding to attend the legal education certificate courses. Scholarships to attend a one-year Master of Laws degree program at Chicago-Kent in international law with an emphasis on criminal litigation will also be awarded to four Tec de Monterrey law school graduates. Two Tec students already have been accepted into the program and will begin classes at Chicago-Kent in the fall of 2009.

About Illinois Institute of Technology

Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting university with more than 7,300 students in engineering, sciences, architecture, psychology, design, humanities, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum is designed to advance knowledge through research and scholarship, to cultivate invention improving the human condition, and to prepare students from throughout the world for a life of professional achievement, service to society, and individual fulfillment. Visit iit.edu.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Evan Venie, 312-567-3202
Assistant Director, Media Relations
venie@iit.edu

IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law and Tec De Monterrey Establish Criminal Law and Advocacy Program | Chicago Press Release Services - Chicago's leading press release newswire service; professional press release services, press release distribution and newswire services.